Rollout of on-board cameras for commercial fishing vessels underway

The rollout of on-board cameras across New Zealand’s inshore commercial fishing fleet has reached a new milestone, with Minister for Oceans and Fisheries Rachel Brooking announcing that cameras go live on the first 23 boats from August.

“Initial installations on these 23 boats will be followed by a further 70 by the end of the year, and up to 300 by early 2025,” Rachel Brooking said.

According to the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI), the government is investing $68 million to get cameras installed on up to 300 commercial fishing vessels, covering around 85% of the total catch by volume of inshore fisheries in New Zealand.

“These cameras join the existing activities used to monitor commercial fishing in New Zealand, including monitoring boat locations and the work of on-board observers,” said the Minister. Cameras have been prioritised on boats posing a higher risk to protected species of marine mammals and seabirds. Filming only occurs when fishing is taking place.

“People in New Zealand, and around the world, increasingly demand evidence of sustainable fishing practices,” Rachel Brooking said. “As a Government, we share this desire and we’re taking action.

The camera rollout follows trials along the west coast of the North Island focused on protecting Māui dolphin habitat. These trials were accompanied by bans on trawling across 12,000 square kilometres and bans on set netting over 32,000 square kilometres.

New Requirements

Since April 2023, MPI has been working with its service provider, Spark Business Group (Spark), to finalise the build of the on-board camera system and ensure it meets all requirements, with Spark confirming the 01 August go-live for Priority Group 1 vessels.

Priority Group 1 includes trawl vessels less or equal to 32 metres in overall length (except those targeting scampi) and set net vessels greater than or equal to 8 metres in overall length fishing off the West Coast of the North Island and the North, East and South coasts of the South Island.

Go-live dates for the remaining priority groups are being finalised and the ministry plans to confirm those new dates in July.

Under the Fisheries (Electronic Monitoring on Vessels) Regulations 2017 (EM regulations) vessels will be required to provide footage which enables MPI, with reasonable accuracy, to:

• Identify the types of fish caught, fishing gear used and by-catch mitigation measures adopted

• Estimate the size and quantity of the fish taken or transported

To comply with the EM regulations, crews will be required to bring fishing gear on board, sort the catch and return any fish or aquatic life to the sea in view of one of the cameras installed on the vessel. Catch sorting or discarding outside the camera fields of view will likely constitute a breach of the regulations, resulting in possible compliance investigation.

According to an Electronic Monitoring System Guide for On-Board Cameras published by Spark, on-board camera systems are comprised of:

• EM server and 4G wireless module (an on-board server that powers the cameras and records onto an in-built hard drive).

• Power over ethernet (POE) digital video cameras.

• A 10-inch on-board display to enable the fisher to check the status of cameras and other hardware (dimming functionality included).

• A power over ethernet (PoE) unit and ethernet cabling for the cameras.

• A voltmeter (non-illuminating) to enable trouble shooting.

• Antenna and coaxial cable with associated connectors

How it works

According to the Guide, before a vessel departs port, the operator is required to conduct a pre-departure check to ensure the camera system is operating by ensuring the system is switched to ‘ACTIVE’ and images are showing on the onboard display.

Once in the ‘ACTIVE’ state, the system captures footage continuously at both low and higher resolution, in oneminute time segments. Footage is encrypted and securely stored on the vessel’s hard drive. The onboard server initiates upload of all low-resolution footage to the Cloud once the vessel is in Spark mobile coverage.

Once footage is uploaded to the Cloud, all previous footage on the vessel’s hard drive is over-written as new footage is collected.

The Cloud Artificial Intelligence (AI) Models, states the Guide, will analyse every one minute segment of footage to detect in-scope fishing activities. “If such activities are detected, the system will instruct the on-board server to upload the relevant higher resolution footage to the Cloud. If the event is selected for review, approved MPI staff are then able to view the footage.”

The EM regulations come into effect for different fisheries and fishing methods at different stages, and will eventually apply to all vessels using in-scope methods anywhere in New Zealand waters. In the meantime, the regulations only apply to fishing events that start within a specified area and do not apply to fishing events that start outside the specified area but finish inside.

To account for this, the camera system uses geofencing to track vessel location and is pre-programmed to automatically stop collecting footage when the vessel leaves the specified area (even if set to ‘ACTIVE’).

Selection and Review of Footage

Once footage has been identified and stored, privacy protected, and available for review, states the Guide, footage is matched to the electronic reporting data provided by the vessel (a means of ensuring that only footage relating to fishing activity is reviewed). MPI will then review a selection of footage based on a mix of random-selection and targeted risk-based factors.

Access to footage will have an audit trail, with recording of time, date, footage accessed, the person who accessed the footage and business reason why it was accessed. Reviewers are unable to choose which footage is selected for their review.

The catch data collected by MPI analysts will be used to verify the accuracy of fishers’ reports, and cases of potential non-compliance with commercial fishing regulations will be notified to Fisheries Compliance (potential breaches of other regulations will be referred to the responsible agency).